Well, these issues have been thrashed out pretty thoroughly in the four or five months that I've been participating in this list. I would suggest that you get a look at the index of museum-l and refer to some of these discussion. My take on the issues you raised: 1) Images of artwork look terrible on computer, and are not a "threat" to the visitorship at museums. Also a better educated population is good for all of us. 2) Other types of collections having images on the net are largely useful to scholars. We at the New York Botanical Garden want to make our herbarium specimens available that way, to allow botanists to browse through the collection. I can tell you that for us, a comprehensive visual database is at least a decade off. 3) Collections information on the net is not a threat, and security measures are readily integrated into net access. Libraries have been on line through OCLC and RLIN for years, and noone suggests that this poses a threat. Eric Siegel [log in to unmask]